Scholarships

In Kenya, we support therefore children, in particular girls, with scholarships of about 350 Euro per year to open up for them access to Secondary Schools and to enable them to eventually graduate from these schools. The scholarships serve to finance school fees, school uniforms, learning material and accommodation costs of boarding schools. The children are selected in cooperation with ChildFund Kenya, the local schools and communities according to the following criteria: need (e.g. orphans or vulnerable children of single mothers) and the prospective ability to finish the school with success. Currently, we yearly support about 25 children by this way in the areas Mutonga (near Mount Kenya) and Kendu Bay (in the region Nyanza, Lake Victoria). The supported children also receive regularly teaching in sexual and reproductive health, and girls are equipped with sanitary kits to ensure continuous school visit.

Since the start of the project 80 children have successfully finished secondary school; about 15 of these children study currently at the university or at a college; one student received already her diploma as a nurse. We intend to expand the range of the support for vocational training or university education for children who graduated with good results from secondary school. Currently we promote three scholars with 700 Euro per years respectively.

In Tanzania-Zanzibar we supported a community in establishing and sustaining a learning centre for children and adults, the Jambiani Community Academy (JCA). Apart from adult training (in particular computing abilities) the academy’s main aim was to help disadvantaged children in their preparation for national examinations in Form 2 (lower secondary level) or Form 4 (upper secondary level) or to give them the opportunity to repeat a failed examination. JCA works now independently, among others in the area of vocational training for tourism.

Since 2018 we support children at the public Jambiani Secondary School. In the beginning we promoted in particular children to pass examination in Form 4. Up to two third of children used to fail in these examinations so that we intended to give them a second chance of transiting into upper secondary education (Form 5, 6) or into high-quality vocational training. Recently, this situation slightly improved, but the hurdles for girls are still high to transit successfully to upper secondary levels. We organised therefore an intensive tutorial to prepare girls for the examination in F4.

Currently, we are financing at this school the bulk of investment into an electronic Learning Management System (eLMS). We are cooperating thereby with Tanzanian Institute of Education (TIE) and Open University of Dar es Salaam to provide the necessary training and advice to teachers and students. Since 2019, we added an inclusion project by supporting seven children with disabilities (blind or deaf), and we endeavour, apart from special teaching facilities (like Braille, voice recorder, sign charts), adjusting eLMS to the needs of these children and their teachers. Furthermore, in co-operation with a Belgian NGO we succeeded to ensure the financing a new school building including a conference hall.